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Separatist push/Ukraine shove back


Kinophile

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Copy, thank you. Dirty little fight. I assume the marines had no proper ATGM? Or was there none supporting? Considering hostile armor was nearby, surely sone form of ATGM overwatch would be needed? I km w arty is the primary AT weapon for UKR, but still... 

Has the ammo dump explosion yesterday been further explained? 

Edited by kinophile
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6 hours ago, kinophile said:

Copy, thank you. Dirty little fight. I assume the marines had no proper ATGM? Or was there none supporting? Considering hostile armor was nearby, surely sone form of ATGM overwatch would be needed? I km w arty is the primary AT weapon for UKR, but still... 

Has the ammo dump explosion yesterday been further explained? 

ATGM too havy for carry it in offensive. Also position was in direct LOS and lower than enemy position in Pikuzy, so using and stable guiding of missile under fire would be problematic. May be ATGM was mounted on BMP, but to use it in front of enemy tank is suicide. And btw BMP crews as ususally have very basic training for ATGM using, so that weapon mostly doesn't use.

About Balakleya storages explosion there is no exact information. Officials say about diversion, because fire was set in several places. Locals say they heard a sound in the night sky like from UAV engines. Balakleya is one of the biggest storage. Here in underground and surface concrete bunkers stored about 20 % of all 125 mm tank and 152 mm artillery ammunition. Also in huge quantities under open sky here stored outdated shells and missiles, which expect for utilization as well as ammunition, which waits sending to frontline. Exactly its both now burning end exploising. Among other ammunition - SAM missiles for S-300 and "Kub" (not in service). In 2015 Balakleya storages already tried to set fire with flares, but personnel have extinguished the fire. Also Russians with UAVs already made fire on storage near Mariupol and huge explosions near Svatove (among all other ammunition we lost battery of MLRS Uragan). Though after Svatove, almost equal damage have suffered Russia on own range in Rostov region. Some sources say that was our SSO simmetric response... Will see what will be in that time...

On video huge explosion on 1:51

Scale of disaster 

EpGNwaoHRNg.jpg

Edited by Haiduk
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Doesn't a lot of ammo, especially missiles release toxic fumes when they burn like this?  I seem to remember the catalyst in one of Steven Zaloga's books being a fire at an ammo dump that killed a bunch of civilians due to the fumes...

Definitely doubleplusungood for the city if true

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Haiduk,

That's simply terrible. The official word is sabotage. The official Ukrainian government statement said "several sites," too. Multiple sites hit, with simultaneous detonation? That takes some doing. 20,000  evacuated. The munitions depot/depot complex was 100 kilometers behind the front line. If your SSO guys are giving Russia a taste of its own diversionary group medicine--on Russian soil--I love it. We were quite gleeful in my department when the Russians were in Afghanistan and we got reports the muj had nipped across the border at Mary and hit the Russians on their own turf.  If Ukrainian ammunition storage practices are anything like what I saw of Russia's, then I'm hardly surprised disaster would ensue, especially with multiple points of initiation, as were reported. Drone for post attack BDA and KP occupant gratification?

storage-transportation-of-ammunition-rus

Image Credit: Yaplakal.com via RussiaTrek.org Blog post on this frankly terrifying Russian Army ammo storage matter here. Short version? 25 rail cars of ammunition and no guards. Terrorist Walmart!

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited by John Kettler
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@John Kettler 

I remembered how the ATGM on the BMP suddenly began to return backward. Then half a year didn't shoot ATGM.

Я вспомнил как на боевых стрельбах ПТУР на БМП неожиданно стал возвращаться назад . Потом пол года не стреляли ПТУРами .

 

Edited by HUSKER2142
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HUSKER2142,

Not sure I follow what you're saying. Are you telling me the real AT-3 series ATGMs developed some sort of guidance malfunction that cased them to reverse course--so often, apparently, that their use was discontinued for half a year? If so, I'm both astounded and baffled.

Even with SACLOS, as soon as the missile turns a few tens of degrees off axis from LOS to the aimpoint at most, the missile will break lock with the tracker/guidance unit and will crash, for there will no longer be any control inputs to prevent this. The only way around this I can see is to somehow instruct the missile to fly a reciprocal course and hold flight altitude constant. From everything I know of such systems, that can't be done, for the smarts are in the tracker, not the missile. This is true for MCLOS, SACLOS and ACLOS systems, every one of which is critically dependent on the tracker/guidance unit sitting there at/near where the ATGM was launched. If the tracker can't talk to the missile, then the missile has no idea what to do, for it simply and blindly does what the tracker tells it to do. That is simply telling the missile where it is relative to where the crosshairs are positioned and generating a stream  of steering commands to keep it there.

ATGMs with such guidance means, be it wire, radio or LBR--all are subject to that fundamental reality. Now, if the missile were, in fact, autonomous once launched, and somebody reprogrammed the missile ahead of time to reverse course, or could somehow gain control of it in flight, that would be another matter altogether. Torpedoes, which are, at the core, autonomous weapons once launched (there are now some which initially operate under wire or fiber optic hair thin lines prior to being turned loose after their onboard seekers lock on)  have had issues returning to the launching ship or submarine practically as long as they have existed, and it has ended badly on a number of occasions.

http://bytesdaily.blogspot.com/2014/12/4-ships-that-torpedoed-themselves.html

I spent six years at Hughes Missile Systems Group (TOW was ours), during which I was the in-house expert on Russian ATGMs starting with AT-1 and going from there. Between them and TOW, as well as our own design work on LBRs vs F&F weapons (LBR lost out; F&F won the competition, and that's how Javelin ultimately came to be), I covered all three CLOS categories for ATGMs. Rack my brain as I will, I can't see a way to do what you described--if, in fact, I understood you correctly at all. Dazzlers, in the optical range, can certainly overwhelm the tracker and essentially make it impossible to control the missile. It is also possible to "steal" the tracker by "outshouting" the missile's downlink, thus orphaning the missile and causing it to exit controlled flight. But that's not really necessary. All that really needs to happen is to convince the tracker the missile's not really where it is, causing it to send corrective commands based on false data. A few degrees error at most will suffice to generate a miss. When Shtora looks at an incoming ATGM and starts strobing, this injects erroneous data into the tracker, causing it to send the wrong guidance commands, as shown below. It is important to note here that I'm not talking about any sort of missile with homing capabilities. That's a completely different ball game.
 

There is a possibility that I may be utterly unaware of something I should know, regarding this discussion, about the ATGM control means we're addressing, but I can't imagine what that might be. If anyone else can help me understand the issue HUSKER2142 has raised, I'd love to hear from you.

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited by John Kettler
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John Kettler 

The 9M113 missile was damp because of a violation of the storage rules. During the shooting the gyro unit and the control unit did not work properly. As a consequence, after launching the rocket began to gain altitude and turn vertically in the direction of the observation tower for firing. Usually if the ATGM defective it fell to the ground immediately. Or flew in the direction of shooting. After that, the ammunition depots were inspected for six months.

Ракета 9М113 отсырела из-за нарушения правил хранения . Во время стрельбы гироскопический блок и блок управление работали не штатно . В следствии чего ракета после пуска начала набирать высоту и разворачиваться вертикально в направление вышки наблюдения стрельб . Обычно если ПТУР неисправный он падал на землю сразу же . Или улетал в направление стрельб .После этого полгода шла проверка складов боеприпасов  .

 

 

321.jpg

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HUSKER2142,

Wow! Had absolutely no idea such a thing was possible, since I knew of no way the missile could stay in the air without guidance input. The guys in the range control tower must've been transfixed with horror as the event/s unfolded. Shouldn't ammo depots be inspected regularly? Command emphasis is great over the short term, but much better when consistently applied as a matter of course. The 9M113 Konkurs/AT-5 SPANDREL was involved in this case, but is this a general issue with Russian/Ukrainian ATGMs of the Cold War period, regardless of whether produced later than that? Am going to have to talk to brother George about whether a TOW of any model could do such a terrifying thing. Many thanks for the info!

Regards,

John Kettler

 

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HUSKER2142,

As promised, I spoke to my brother. He related a number of stories about TOWs crashing shortly after launch, veering impressively off course and even doing what you described. He knew of the last but explicitly stated he'd never seen it happen himself. He said the problem lay in two factors: only the oldest missiles in stock got live fired, and their harsh life in a Bradley CFV wasn't good for them.

Regards,

John Kettler

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9 hours ago, John Kettler said:

HUSKER2142,

Wow! Had absolutely no idea such a thing was possible, since I knew of no way the missile could stay in the air without guidance input. The guys in the range control tower must've been transfixed with horror as the event/s unfolded. Shouldn't ammo depots be inspected regularly? Command emphasis is great over the short term, but much better when consistently applied as a matter of course. The 9M113 Konkurs/AT-5 SPANDREL was involved in this case, but is this a general issue with Russian/Ukrainian ATGMs of the Cold War period, regardless of whether produced later than that? Am going to have to talk to brother George about whether a TOW of any model could do such a terrifying thing. Many thanks for the info!

Regards,

John Kettler

 

I watched everything from the control tower of the shooting.

I tend to more to the mismanagement of ammunition storage. A comrade in the Far East also had a similar case. At training firing, ammunition is fired at which the expiration of the storage period is suitable. As an option, new boxes for ammunition from polymer composite materials that are cheaper than wooden ones would come up. Shelf life is increased by 2-3 times. But wooden ones have one plus, they can be used to quickly light a fire in a burzhuyka (army stove) :).

 

Я всё наблюдал с вышки управления стрельбой .

Я склоняюсь больше к нарушению техники безопасности хранения боеприпасов . У товарища на Дальнем Востоке тоже похожий случай был .На учебных стрельбах стреляют боеприпасами у которых подходит окончание срока хранения .Как вариант подошли бы новые ящики для боеприпасов из полимерных композиционных материалов , которые дешевле деревянных . Срок хранения увеличивается в 2-3 раза . Но у деревянных есть один плюс , их можно использовать для того что бы быстро разжечь огонь в буржуйке ( армейская печь ) . 

 

http://twower.livejournal.com/1860481.html

Edited by HUSKER2142
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HUSKER2142,

Thought you were simply telling us a story of an incident--not one in which you nearly got killed! The polymer boxes are quite nice, but if burned would ruin the food and likely sicken or even kill the men around the stove. What did you think of those ammo storage pics at the link I provided?

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited by John Kettler
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19 minutes ago, John Kettler said:

HUSKER2142,

Thought you were simply telling us a story of an incident--not one in which you nearly got killed! the polymer boxes are quite nice, but if burned would ruin the food and likely sicken or even kill the men around the stove. What did you think of those ammo storage pics at the link I provided?

Regards,

John Kettler


This usually stores ammunition that can not be disposed of or is being prepared for disposal. But I'm not surprised if a part is used in training firing. The question is more to the warehouses where ammunition is stored for the military districts. And not to warehouses for military units and formations.

Так обычно хранят боеприпасы которые не успевают утилизировать или готовят к утилизации . Но не удивляюсь если часть используют в учебных стрельбах . Больше вопрос к складам где хранятся боеприпасы для военных округов . А не к складам для воинских частей и соединений .

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Haiduk,

Now, that's effective camouflage, but I can't tell whether I'm looking at great camouflage only or great camouflage AND some sort of digital FX. The shape is so well broken up my eye didn't initially register it and saw the crew only later. At spitting distance! I never cease to be amazed by how easy it is to hide things in the Ukraine countryside. I once saw a video of a rerstored IS-2,  in the woods, and without special camouflage, it was very hard to see. Rock on, SSO!

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited by John Kettler
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On 29.03.2017 at 10:51 PM, HerrTom said:

How are these used in Comcast? Are they like manpower intensive trucks used to sneak around from point a to point b?

SSO doesn't say many about own work. Since three years of war we know only about several episodes with their participation. And these episodes almost all for 2014 year, when they as far as were not named SSO and havn't such vehicles.

This is other volunteer-developed vehicles for SSO - fire support buggy "Pegas" and recon-assault car. Both in small series were built in car-service and given to SSO units. SSO havn't special light transport. In 2014 its was armed only with Urals, KAMAZ and some BTR-80. All absolutely weren't appropriate for special forces tasks. So if state can't do anything, volunteers built vehicles. 

"Pegasus" with different armament

0_122045_37d610e6_XL.jpg

0_122046_134eba43_XL.jpg

0_122312_27a5b5ad_XL.jpg

And recon-assault car

l4-W6e5Sjg0.jpg

Though, such class of vehicles in small number was officially adopted in National Guard. 1st NGU operative brigade has SP-ATGM Stugna-P battery on UTV CF MotoTracker800 base. But it never used in fights.  

402127_900.jpg

Edited by Haiduk
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Thanks for the answer Haiduk. I also applauds you for understanding me. Apparently the flu severely impacts my ability to spell!

I'm particularly fond of the golf cart ATGM. It's just so dinky, I can see why they haven't been used in combat. Very interesting all around!

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8 hours ago, HerrTom said:

I'm particularly fond of the golf cart ATGM. It's just so dinky.  I can see why they haven't been used in combat.

I heard, that according to Minsk agreements only Army have to keep frontline, not NGU. But there is no such article in agreements indeed. So, I don't know why was assumed such decision. Though, sometime NGU battalion "Donbas" and separate recon units of "Azov" , both belonged to 18th NGU operative regiment have tasks on frontline. These SP-ATGMs were adopted in summer 2015, when no intensive warfare like in 2014. "Golfcars" in first time appeared in 1st operative brigade as far as 2012 (in that time it named 14th Internal troops brigade "Bars") - its were armed with AGS-17. But I also never heard about its combat usage. In whole 1st NGU brigade have many new vehicles and equipment, but motivation of personnel and command is very low. This unit, which dislocated near Kyiv, always considered itself like elite "court" brigade, which must to maintain of current authority protection, but not to sit under shellings in trenches. In 2014, when in this unit were included new-formed NGU battalions, gathered from Maidan volunteers, was many both-side conflicts between former swarn enemies - troopers of "Bars" treated to Maidan insurgents with the same cruelty (even conscripts, not only contractors) like riot police units "Berkut". 

Edited by Haiduk
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Haiduk,

Were he not 1) head above the terrain he blends into so well, 2) silhouetted against a dark background atop the discontinuity I previously and 3) having so much of his not blending in weapon exposed, he'd be all but invisible. Also, something I've noted with UKR snipers is they have no anti-reflection devices I can see in front of the scope to prevent the rightly dreaded and potentially fatal sun flash. During WW II, one thing the Germans did was to block the objective lens save for a small slit parallel to the ground. This stopped glint, but I don't know, not being an optics specialist, at what overall performance cost. But on the Eastern Front, where most of the German Army was, the Russians had vast numbers of snipers. I think giving up some range in exchange for not being detected prior to firing and probably shot or mortared if so detected, would be a really good trade. I have no idea where you get all your information from, but am oh so grateful you do and share it with us! In a side note ref the SSO vehicles, I must say the Pegasus "Rat Patrol" vehicle with the Dushka looks cool.

"The Rat Patrol" S1 E1, so you know what I mean.

Here's the really existed basis for the TV show. This is either an actual WW II PPA (Popski's Private Army) jeep or a reconstruction of one. There were some which had 2 x Ma Deuce, rather than a .50 HMG and a .30 LMG.

7761764694_692a144465_b.jpg

Image Credit:


 via Flickr

Regards,

John Kettler

 

Edited by John Kettler
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9 hours ago, John Kettler said:

Haiduk,

Were he not 1) head above the terrain he blends into so well, 2) silhouetted against a dark background atop the discontinuity I previously and 3) having so much of his not blending in weapon exposed, he'd be all but invisible. Also, something I've noted with UKR snipers is they have no anti-reflection devices

He is just poses for photo :).

Anti-reflection devices I, think, use aces of sniping, for example SBU special unit "Alfa" or counter-sniper unit "Blyskavka" (eng.lightinng) of UDO (Departament of State Guard) special unit "Bulat".

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Haiduk,

Good point. Can be alarmingly focused and may miss forest because of single tree fixation. In reviewing the picture I noticed something I'd missed previously, which is that the grass cable (for want of a better word) covering the muzzle and slightly aft has been unwound, exposing parts of the weapon which wouldn't otherwise be visible. Huge detail to miss and tactically very important. Was going to say that snipers typically use cloth strips, camo tape and such to make the rifle less detectable, not realizing the UKR sniper had achieved the same net result, but had largely unwrapped the weapon.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Some words about DNR forces territorial gains for first three months of 2017. Without major clashes they also advanced in "grey zone" (bright green areas on maps)

1. On Mariupol direction, south-east from Dokuchayevsk town they approached to lateral road Novotroitske - Hranitne in our close rear

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. On Donetsk direction, enemy have approached to our outpost positions in Nevelske village between Krasnohorivka and Pisky.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!%D0%B

Edited by Haiduk
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